Page 27 of The Heart We Guard
I’m well enough to move back home.
Both Greer and I know it.
Yet I’m lying in my messages.
Making out I’m worse than I am, that it would be treacherous to move me, that there’s police heat around Greer’s house.
But this. Me. Greer. The simple quiet. I like it in a way I didn’t think was possible.
“You need a top up?” I ask.
Greer smiles as she offers me her cup. “I’d love one. Thanks.”
“What are you working on?” I ask as I pour her coffee. She takes hers black like I do, so it’s not a big job.
I sit next to her on the long bench seat and place her coffee next to her laptop.
She purses her lips. “My mobile clinic. In the past, the logistics and how I’d balance it with my job always seemed to get in the way. Now, I really have time to think about it. I’d want it above board, mostly. I have a medical license, but I have no idea what kind of insurance it would need or those kinds of practical details.”
A thought returns to me. Something I could put in place for the club. “You could build something informal at the clubhouse. On Atom’s land. A private center. We always have need for a surgeon.”
Greer glances at me. “That’s kind of you, Butcher. But I think this would work better without club affiliations. I want everyone to feel like they can have access to it, and that wouldn’t work if they had to step onto Outlaw land to make it work.”
I nod. “That’s fair. But would you consider being the on-call doctor for the club?” I touch the sealed and healing wound on my shoulder. “You’re obviously really good at what you do.”
Her cheeks pinken as she reaches for her coffee and takes a sip. “I could tell you how to reach my mobile clinic.”
“You’re dodging my offer.”
Greer smiles sadly. “It’s a lovely offer, but it’s not realistic.”
I think her words mean more than the connection to the club. “Yeah,” I say, even as I feel a thousand needle pricks to my heart.
But I sit and help her plan anyway. The feeling we’re building something comes in waves throughout the day. A way to save lives instead of take them.
Yet, Greer never judges me or my life choices.
When she tells me she has to run to the store for groceries, I’m sad it’s over.
I need to leave, and soon, because I’m old enough to recognize the signs I’m getting attached to her.
That evening, after some chicken and vegetables, not blended this time, I shuffle up behind Greer as she loads the dishwasher. I wanted to help, almost insisted. Until she got all stern on me and told me it would be a waste of her good work if I popped shit open doing something mundane like loading the dishwasher.
And given how I feel standing up, she might be right. Because the idea of properly folding forward at the hips terrifies me.
“Any chance I could take an actual shower, today?” I ask. “Don’t think I’ve got it in me to climb into a bathtub, but if you have a walk-in, I’d love a proper scrub down.”
A wrinkle forms over Greer’s nose, and I know she’s working the problem. Probably calculating how much longer the stitches need to stay in or whether it’s too soon to remove the dressing.
Then, she shocks the heck out of me by nodding.
“Sure. The shower in my bathroom off my bedroom is a walk in. I’ll come up and help you.”
I smile wryly because I love teasing her. “I’m guessing my definition ofhelpand your definition ofhelpare most definitely not the same.”
She closes the dishwasher but doesn’t turn it on so the water supply to the bathroom remains constant. She told me over dinner about how, when she bought this house, she had this big plan to turn it into something ultra-modern and much more environmentally sound. But the contractor wasn’t available for the rest of the year. By the time they told her they had capacity, she’d fallen in love with the place as it was but never got around to making new plans to upgrade the water system. Apparently, running the shower at the same time as the dishwasher is a recipe for scalding and freezing.
“Most definitely not.”
